In a BtoB Magazine webinar on May 13, Eric Bensley,
product marketer of Citrix Online, shared 10
tactical tips that you can implement with your
webinars to make them more effective.

Tip #1 Promote with email marketing
Email is still found to be the most effective way to
draw people to a Web event.
95 percent of webinar registrants prefer to
communicate via email before a live session. Build
up a database of customers and communicate with them
via a webinar with an email before the event. You
want the reader to see exactly what they’ll be
getting by attending the webinar at a glance.

Tip #2 Profile your webinar registrants
Use registrations from the webinar signups to
understand who your audience will consist of before
the event. Is this their first webinar? If it is,
you’ll need to organize your presentation around
that, explaining what webinars are and how they
work. Use profiling before the webinar to help your
presentation be more engaging for your audience. 69
percent of webinar presenters find registrant
profiles helpful to customize their content before
the event.

Tip #3 Build attendance with reminder emails
Most registrants prefer to receive a reminder 1 to 3
days before the live event. It can also increase the
attendance rate to your webinar by 10 to15 percent.
People get busy and forget they signed up for
something weeks or months before. Build reminders
into your program and get people to the live event.

Tip #4 Develop presenter interplay
Presenter interplay is incredibly important in
webinars. One person pitching an idea the entire
time loses attendees’ attention spans in about 10 to
15 minutes. By having multiple speakers and people
running Q&A, the whole event runs more smoothly. 40
percent of all webinars have guest speakers and 68
percent have live Q&A support.

Tip #5 Present dynamic content
Power Point presentations can get dry. Bring in
other types of content; software, your company
website—something that makes the session more
engaging to the attendees.

Tip #6 Monitor your audience
Webinar speakers and mediators can’t see the
attendees so they have no idea if their engaged or
reading their email on another screen. There are now
tools that allow you to monitor your attendees in
real time. Use these tools to see how your webinar
is progressing and adjust your notes depending on
the outcome.

Tip #7 Engage your audience
It may seem redundant at this point, but it can’t be
emphasized enough: Bring your audience into the
presentation by using pop up polls, 1:1 texts,
verbal questions, and providing Q&A opportunities at
the end of the presentation. Plan these before the
event. It should be between speakers or points where
you feel the audience needs to be re-engaged. The
idea is that you’re bringing the audience back into
the presentation and making it more a two-way event.

Tip #8 Qualify attendees with surveys
After sessions, surveys are a great way to qualify
attendees. It helps your sales people designate
those they should follow up with. You can ask
targeted questions to understand their interest
levels. Do they want a demo or another presentation?
You can use these surveys to qualify your prospects
and move them over into your sales cycle.

Tip #9 Continue dialog with follow up emails
A common mistake with webinar leads is to have
people come to you and then assume that your content
was so compelling your attendees are going to take
action, find you and call you. Not likely. All
marketers should know if you don’t give them a call
or reach out to them in some form, nothing is going
to happen with those leads. Give them a recording of
the presentation and any other content you have that
may be relevant to them. Follow up and start that
dialog—preferably within a day so their interest
level isn’t lost.

Tip #10 Extend reach with recording
You put a lot of time and effort into these webinars
and it’s easy to record them. So do it! 50 percent
of all online presentation attendees surveyed have
viewed recorded sessions. Put them on your website,
give them to your sales team, send them to your
prospects, and make them on-demand. You can get a
lot more bang out of your buck if you continue to
make them available after the live event.

Using these webinar tactics make for faster lead
generation and conversion by broadening your reach,
delivering more meaningful and relevant content, and
qualifying leads after the session for sales.
Hopefully these 10 tips will help you deliver your
next webinar more effectively or help you get
started in organizing your first webinar for your
marketing program.